“Tennysonian!” pronounced Stefan, using what she knew to be his final adjective of condemnation. “A little Victorian, perhaps,” she admitted, smiling at this succinct repudiation. “Nevertheless, I'm inclined to think he was right. There is a sort of Pan-inspired terror in your work, you know.” He appeared struck. “Mary, I believe you've hit it!” he exclaimed, suddenly standing still. “I've never thought of it like that before--the thing that makes my work unique, I mean. Like the music of Pan, it's outside humanity, because I am.” “Don't say that, dear,” she interrupted, shocked. “Yes, I am. I hate my kind--all except a handful. I love beauty. It is not my fault that humanity is ugly.” Mary was deeply disturbed. Led on by a chance phrase of hers, he was actually boasting of just that lack which was becoming her secret fear for him. She touched his arm, pleadingly. “Stefan, don't speak like that; it hurts me dreadfully. It is awful for any one to build up a barrier between himself and the world. It means much unhappiness, both for himself and others.” He laughed affectionately at her. “Why, sweet, what do we care? I love you enough to make the balance true. You are on my side of the barrier, shutting me in with beauty.” “Is that your only reason for loving me?” she asked, still distressed. “I love you because you have a beautiful body and a beautiful mind--because you are like a winged goddess of inspiration. Could there be a more perfect reason?” Mary was silent. Again the burden of his ideal oppressed her. There was no comfort in it. It might be above humanity, she felt, but it was not of it. Again her mind returned to the pictures and Farraday's criticism. “Sinister!” So he would have summed up all the others, except the Danaë. To that at least the word could not apply. Her heart lifted at the realization of how truly she had helped Stefan. In his tribute to her there was only beauty. She knew now that her gift must be without reservation. Home again, she stood long before the picture, searching its strange face. Was she wrong, or did there linger even here the sinister, half-human note? “Stefan,” she said, calling him to her, “I was wrong to ask you not to make the face like me. It was stupid--'Tennysonian,' I'm afraid.” She smiled bravely. “It _is_ me--your ideal of me, at least--and I want you to make the face, too, express me as I seem to you.” She leant against him. “Then I want you to exhibit it. I want you to be known first by our gift to each other, this--which is our love's triumph.” She was trembling; her face quivered--he had never seen her so moved. She fired him.